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So, I bought the hordes rulebook a while back, read it, liked it, then for whatever reason never did anything. Anyway now I do wanna do something.

So first question, if I play hordes, will I know how to play warmachine, and vise versa?

I was thinking of either Skorne or Everblight, I like the idea of using more big monsters than little ones or troops. I have enough "horde" armies in GW stuff and don't wanna go that route again. But I'm not too sure I like the everblight monsters, they're kinda funky looking but then the white color scheme they use might be making it look worse. The wolf guys don't appeal to me much and the trolls just seem too cartoony.

But now I'm also looking into warmachine and not sure which way to go. I like the look of the jacks and the whole steam robot idea, and with them I would also like to focus more on big stuff than little stuff. I was interested in Cryx at first, but looking at the models I know I'll end up painting em all black and stuff, and that's all I ever do, so I want to try something different and a bit more colorful. I also like the look of Khador, and Cygnar to a lesser extent. One thing that kind of bothers me is almost all the pics I see, people are painting their stuff just like the box. Like, what if I want bright blue Khador stuff instead of mother-russia-red?

actually, what I would be hoping to do with the jacks is really get into a lot of the advanced painting stuff I've been reading about, like the hardcore weathering and blending some folks do with WWII models and having the stuff look old and way overused. Possibly in more of an army-green color scheme.. I have some really cool ideas in my head that I'd like to try out.

So now I'm torn. Do I want Hordes or do I want War Machine? Skorne or Khador? Everblight or Cryx? They're the 4 I've really been checking out and interested in based on just looks alone. Is the difference in the games really just boiled down to if you wanna play with monsters or steam-bots?

And how forgiving is the army building process? I don't wanna buy stuff just because it looks good and then get around to playing and realize that the awesome model I just bought and painted actually kinda sucks and makes me always lose.

There's not a lot of difference between the Warmachine and thr Hordes game mechanics. Go with whichever faction you like the look of the most.

There are few lame models in both hordes and Warmachine, so Starting out with figures that look cool to you or that you like the fluff on, is cool. Hordes favors an aggressive risk taker with Warmachine requires more planning and forethought. Both games however do play very simialiy, the core game mechanics are interchangeable, with only the interaction between a caster and beast/warjack changing. As you are a new players I'd recommend Khador or Everblight if you like brute force, Cryx if you like to be tricky and brutal, and Skorne if you like Brutal Elephants and funky frogs.

Additionally, Paint the models anyway you like. I'm painting my Khador like Canadians, They still have a lot of red, but White and Kaiki are the other main colors. My Friend painted his Cryx up with Greens and dark reds as his color scheme. I was thinking of painting up Star Wars theamed Cygnar (Stormtrooper white Treachers and Swordknights, Striker like Obi Wan (or Darth Vader for E-striker). The Jacks would be the flat Grey of tie fighters or AT-ATs.

Also different is that warjacks cannot lock warbeasts arm or head as warbeasts do not have systems.

There are league rules that change that, but it's not official in any way.

I think I'm gonna end up going with Skorne. I like their models the best except for the frogs.. maybe I can skip them, even though I hear they're real good in games.. we'll see. I'll just go with the starter box set and work from there. I need something new to paint while I wait for my baneblade to come out

I'm skipping the Basilisks, at least for now. Can't stand the figs, though you're right that their rules are really good.

Starter is pretty strong, and will get you by for a while. Even if you only wanted to do 350 points, the starter's around 294, so you'd only need a small unit or a couple of solos to round off.

I picked it up this morning.. building the titan now.. i have to say I kind of missed building big heavy metal models, so used to plastic I think I'm going to skip the banner poles though, the one for the titan seems kinda flimsy and I remember the metal banner pole on my old marine dread bent then broke off after like 3 games.. maybe I can use it for terrain or something.. gonna get a few games in against the wolf guys next weekend.. it'll be starter box vs starter box though. I wanna play a few newbie games before I think about what I need to add next...

I skipped the banners as well. Just didn't feel like gluing the suckers back on after every trip to the store/buddy's house for a game.

If you can find it, No Quarter #4 (I think) has some VERY good hints as to how to build the titan gap-frfe ('course, you're a good enough modeler, you'll figure it out on your own I'm sure. Me? I wanted the damn magazine).

So is their no quarter just their version of white dwarf? Hopefully it has better content I stopped reading WD about 3 years ago not so much because of the content but I was just buying it and not reading it

There were tons of gaps in the titan's body, but I figured maybe it's because my pins didn't line up right. Gonna need some greenstuff but it's not too bad, the gaps are all pretty small. The biggest pain is the Cyclopses, they're packaged together and the pieces are all mixed up, took a good half hour of comparing and fiddling around till I figured out which arms went where.

I hated those arms.

Yeah, No Quarter is their WD. It's also where they preview a lot of their minis.

The basic rules for WARMACHINE and HORDES are exactly the same.  The difference is the interaction between warbeasts and warlocks vs warjacks and warcasters.  Basically they work exactly the opposite of each other. 

Wabeasts generate fury to power the warlock, where the warcaster generates focus to power the warjacks.

All other rules are the same.

No Quarter is the PP version of White Dwarf, however it's not simply a catalogue masquerading as a magazine.  NQ has model previews, rule previews, Iron Kingdoms (the RPG) content, background materiel, battle reports, special scenarios, historical battles, and whatever else they come up with.  It's not just BUY THE LATEST MODELS NOW!  On the whole, NQ is what WD wishes it was.

Knight

Skorne are diffinatley the hardest to win consistantly with if you like the challenge. The are also a thinking mans army because they don't have a lot of the free get out of trouble options that other factions have. I run mine very effectively and prefer Morghul and Hexeris. Some have a lot of success with Makeda but she doesn't fit my playstyle. I personall don't like Clops as much as Krea's and Drakes. Krea is probably the best light warbeast in the game because of her animus and ability to lock other beasts up with spiritual paralysis.